


A Symbol We Don't Need

by SyntheticWinter



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticWinter/pseuds/SyntheticWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to put the amulet around his neck like he’d done those terrible months when Dean was in Hell, but doesn’t feel he has the right anymore, if he ever had. Instead, he tucks it deep into an interior pocket of his duffel bag and vows never to forget what a mess he’s made of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Symbol We Don't Need

**Author's Note:**

> Minor, MINOR spoilers for seasons 6, 7, and 8 (not even sure they count, but just in case...)  
> Also one for S10E05.

He can feel everything starting to come down around him, and he reaches for the one stable thing he’s always known only to find that Dean can’t even hold himself together, much less deal with Sam’s shit. Cas is gone, and Dean is gone, and Sam is left standing alone in another crappy, featureless motel room, frustrated and hurting and damn near _devastated_ that he’s managed to hurt Dean as much as he has. 

Not for the first time, Sam wants to apologize, wants to again try to justify himself: _I can’t control what some ephemeral realm and/or absent deity decided were my favorite memories. It’s not my fault, not entirely._ But it is. 

He’d never wanted to hurt Dean like that. And it wasn’t even entirely true, or at least it wasn’t how it looked. _Dean_ wasn’t the reason he’d left, the reason “ditching” his family was one of his best memories, not at all. It was that he was finally out from under John’s overzealous, indomitably controlling thumb. Dean had been the only thing that could have made him stay, but he doesn’t know how to tell him that without it sounding pacifying. 

He rakes a hand through his hair, almost unable to believe how things got so bad so fast.

But they’re Winchesters. That’s kind of how things go for them.

* * *

Later, after Dean has left – closing the door softly behind him, so much worse than if he’d slammed it – after the silence has settled in and is ringing in Sam’s ears and crushing something in his chest so that he can’t seem to draw a breath, he goes over to the trash can and digs out the amulet. 

He wants to put it around his neck like he’d done those terrible months when Dean was in Hell, but doesn’t feel he has the right anymore, if he ever had. Instead, he tucks it deep into an interior pocket of his duffel bag and vows never to forget what a mess he’s made of things.

* * *

But he does forget – almost – at least for a while. He checks that it’s still there, still safe, every once in a while (after he gets his soul back, after the psych ward, after the coma, after a lot of things), but it doesn’t weigh quite so heavily on his mind anymore.

And then they see the play, and Dean’s words are a salve on wounds Sam didn’t even realize were still open. They echo in his mind all the way back to the motel of the week, in time with the gentle swinging of the prop-turned-rearview-mirror-decoration. _I don’t need a symbol to remind me how I feel about my brother._

And Sam decides that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to let go. Dean hasn’t worn it in years, and it’s not like he’s a different person without it than he was before. He’s still the most amazing, infuriating, courageous person Sam has ever known. No necklace is going to change that, ever.

That night, while Dean is asleep, Sam takes the amulet out of his duffel bag and sets it quietly in the bottom of the trash can. Dean’s right: they don’t need it anymore.


End file.
